On the afternoon of October 28, 2016, Prof. Wu Guosheng from the School of Humanities, Tsinghua University was invited to Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) for an impressive presentation entitled Humanistic Source of Science at the 3rd “Humanities Celebrity Lecture”. Chen Yuehong, Director of the Humanities Center, SUSTech, presided over the lecture.

Wu Guosheng was admitted to the Department of Geophysics, Peking University at the age of 15 to study in space physics, was unconventionally promoted to a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences as the youngest ever at the age of 33, worked as Director of the Center for History and Philosophy, Peking University, and is currently a professor at the School of Humanities, Tsinghua University.

In the lecture, Wu analyzed the origin of the concept of “science” in modern China and revealed Chinese’s misunderstanding of science; explained why science is essentially humanity from a philosophical perspective; analyzed why there was no science in ancient China and why science only emerged in ancient Greece by comparing Chinese culture with Western culture; and explained the origin of Western science spirit by comparing Greek mathematics with Chinese mathematics.

Q&A

Wu provided a view of explaining the “source of science”. In the Q&A session, the students raised scientific questions.